


Pillow

by remanth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Nightmares, Pillow - Freeform, Samsteve - Freeform, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:05:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4715465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remanth/pseuds/remanth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve wakes up from a nightmare to discover Sam has had one of his own</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pillow

There was a weight on his face and he couldn’t breathe. It seemed hauntingly familiar but, for the life of him, he couldn’t place why. He couldn’t quite remember this sensation though he knew it intimately. There was also a lighter pressure on his body though it seemed to be trapping him just as much as the weight on his face. He struggled against it, arms flailing and mouth open on a silent scream that resolutely stayed trapped in his throat. He was going to die (again?) and there was nothing he could do about it.

Then everything turned cold and he froze. Now he remembered. Now he knew where he was and why this was familiar. He’d never escaped the ice and the water, had he? Never been found, never brought back to life. It had all been a dream, finding himself in a strange room listening to a baseball game on the radio that he’d been at the stadium for. This new New York, the Avengers, finding friends and companions and maybe a place to belong in a time that wasn’t his own. He’d been dreaming, hoping for a better place than the crushing cold he was in now.

Steve jerked himself awake as he felt the sensation of water filling his mouth, sitting straight up in bed with the scream that had been trapped in his throat finally falling raggedly from his lips. The pillow that had been resting on his face flew across the room, narrowly missing the clump of photographs sitting on the dresser. Smiling faces met his eyes, teammates and friends, as Steve focused on them to forget the weight and the cold. He scrubbed a hand over his face as he breathed slowly and evenly. Eventually, his heart slowed down enough that he didn’t feel like he was running a marathon.

When he was calmer, Steve looked around the room, a little confused. He was alone in bed when he distinctly remembered Sam falling asleep before he had. And while Sam tended to rise before the sun, a glance out the window showed that it was still fully night rather than the pearly gray of false dawn. The nightmare was still fresh in his mind and Steve didn’t want to go back to sleep yet. If he did, he knew he’d just dream of the ice again, dream of pain and drowning and dying. Untangling himself from the sheet that had wrapped around him in his struggles, Steve padded out of the room and towards the kitchen. There, he found Sam. Moving quietly, Steve stepped behind the other man and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. He pressed a kiss to the crown of Sam’s head and smiled. It always felt like home.

“Hey, what are you doing up?” Sam asked, turning his head so he could look Steve in the eye. “It’s still the middle of the night.”

“I could ask the same of you,” Steve shot back, smiling to take any sting out of the words. He moved around the table and sat across from Sam. Automatically, both of their hands reached out across the table and their fingers twined together. While they were consummate professionals on the team, whenever they were alone, they tended to touch and hug. “Sun won’t be up for a few more hours. It’s not time for me to lap you at the reflecting pool yet.”

Sam smiled and chuckled but the sentiment didn’t reach his eyes. There was a shadow in his eyes that had nothing to do with the darkness in the kitchen. A shadow and an old pain. He’d had his own nightmares this night. It always started the same way. The exhilaration of take-off and flight, of using the wings on his back to propel himself through the skies. The rush of adrenaline as they neared their target. The knowledge that he and his partner stood between the wounded soldier down below and enemies. Between life and death. Then the flaring lights that, under nearly any of circumstance Sam might have called beautiful. Dodging and weaving, holding back the whoops and cries of delight as the wind rushed past him so he couldn’t be targeted through sound.

He always tried to wake up at this point, tried not to see what was going to happen next. It never changed, no matter how he struggled or fought. You couldn’t change the past, not even in your dreams. One of those flaring lights shooting right past him and straight at Riley. A burst of bright white that nearly blinded him. Then the scream. That scream was something Sam could never forget, no matter how hard he tried. His vision always clearing just in time to see Riley plummeting to the earth, one wing sheared off and blood spattering the air around him. He was falling too fast for Sam to even try to catch him. Besides, he still had a mission to accomplish even if all he wanted to do was scream and save his friend.

When Sam had finally woken himself up, he’d been covered in sweat and his chest was heaving with frantic breaths. He’d kept as quiet as he could in order not to wake up Steve, getting out of bed and moving into the bathroom. He’d huddled in the shower, hot water beating down on his head as he sat in the tub with his arms wrapped around his legs. Tears had poured down his face with the water, shoulders shaking with the sobs he was afraid to let out. And then, once he was done, he hadn’t wanted to go back to sleep. Hadn’t wanted to face the possibility that he might see Riley dying again in his nightmares.

“You ever wonder if we can forget the past?” Sam asked suddenly, fingers tightening on Steve’s hand for a moment. “Just let it go, no matter how it might have damaged or scarred us?”

“Riley again?” Steve asked after a moment, voice tender and soft and full of sympathy. When Sam nodded, Steve let out a sigh and rubbed his thumb over the back of Sam’s hand soothingly. “I think the past is always going to be there. What we experience shapes us. We are who we are because, in part, of what we’ve gone through. So in that sense, I don’t think we can let it go.”

“That’s comforting,” Sam said sarcastically though his voice cracked on the last syllable. Riley’s death was why he’d left active service in the first place. He hadn’t been able to get back up in the sky without thinking about how he’d failed his friend. In the darkness of the kitchen, Sam felt despair and sorrow fill his chest. At the same time, a hollow opened in his belly. Both sensations felt like they were going to swallow him or tear him apart. Either way, he wasn’t sure he could make it past them.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Steve replied. “While the past is there, I think we can learn to live with it. To not let it hurt us. We can learn what lesson we need from it and move on. It just takes time and there will be setbacks. You just have to get past them, with whatever help you might need.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’ve helped my share of people past their hurdles. It helped me, even, a little bit. But there’s always that moment that drags you back and you feel like you can never get out.”

“But you can,” Steve encouraged. “You made it this far and you can go even farther. There are people who care about you and are willing to help.”

“I know and thank you,” Sam smiled, squeezing Steve’s hand again. “Speaking of willing to help, why are you up? I know supersoldiers don’t need all that much sleep and all, but really. Even you need more than a couple hours.”

“Nightmares,” Steve replied shortly. “The ice. I thought I was back there, that everything that’s happened in the past few years was all a dream.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes after Steve stopped talking, the weight of their shared pain joining them in the kitchen. But it didn’t seem so heavy now, nor so real. The nightmare each had had was fading away, fading back into the past where it belonged. After another few minutes, by unspoken consent, both men got up and headed back to the bedroom. Steve picked up the pillow he’d launched across the room and chucked it back on the bed. He settled into the bed next to Sam, pulling the other man tight against his side. They curled up with their arms wrapped around each other. After sharing a light, sweet kiss, they both closed their eyes and fell into an easier sleep. And when the alarm went off a few hours later, Sam shut it off with a smile and snuggled back into Steve’s arms. He didn’t feel like going running today. Not when Steve was warm and sleepy in his arms.


End file.
